Slowly, the final plot twist is coming closer, the reader waits for the revelation and a „bam in your face“ solution offers a final thrill. In each frSlowly, the final plot twist is coming closer, the reader waits for the revelation and a „bam in your face“ solution offers a final thrill. In each freaking short story.
I don´t read many short stories, I mean, who does, and so it´s quite subjectively that I find this funny, weird, strange and frightening little story hybrids very entertaining. One of the main reasons I don´t read short stories is that, procrastinating as I am, avoid any unnecessary move and beginning a novel is always a bit similar to, ugh, work, as one has to remember some elements to get in the story, except in the rare cases of true masters of the art.
But those stories are so easy to access, so full of interesting thoughts about human nature, so clever and complex in their minimalism, leaving the reader with the thought that this could probably really happen somewhere and what a strange place the minds of many human beings must be.
It´s the deep cynicism, the darkness close to misanthropy, that makes Dahls´work unique, that shatters any positive worldview by taking general pictures and especially intimate relationships with family members and loved ones to crush the illusion of normality and happiness with terror and madness. I would deem this stories worthy to be used in psychological lectures or the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico for profiles of serial killers.
One of the reasons for Dahls´ view on humankind might have been his experiences as a fighter pilot in WW2 and, well, that he is right. Nothing against some kind of people in general, as long as I don´t have any contact with them, they are acceptable, and this sarcastic and disturbing kind of storytelling totally shows how such complex machinery like the human mind can easily go haywire.
I want to read more about and of the hidden darkness lurking in his children´s books, possibly comparing the English and German version, to see how much subliminal messaging towards showing the true, hidden faces of adults may be waiting to be found. The more I think about it, the more details in the movies and novels come to mind that seem to be more than just characterization and comic relief, more a preparation and training camp for a world filled with… special people.
Dahl was a kind of precursor of the black comedy we see today, as he mixes disturbing and mad characters with bizarre plots and brings them in horriblDahl was a kind of precursor of the black comedy we see today, as he mixes disturbing and mad characters with bizarre plots and brings them in horrible situations without getting too explicit, as there was still much censoring and bigotry surrounding anything nasty when the works were published.
But it would interest me how he would have written without reducing the amount of gore and sex to a minimum, he could have kickstarted the extreme horror, psychological horror- and slasher genre. In contrast to the more subtle meta horror of Lovecraft and classical horror stories, the fear doesn´t lie in the single evil condensed to a monster or a whole world full of terror where the protagonists are just the vehicles to transport the goosebumps to the readers. In Dahls´work, hell is other people comes to a whole new level, as it are the twisted minds and the terrible things they do to other people that make the magic of his work.
He could be compared to Bradbury, who wrote more epical and less depressing with as few words as possible, but didn´t leave the mind penetrated reader with so much paranoia regarding the true motivations and thoughts of the humans surrounding him.
Mario the lone bookwolf
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Books:
dahl-roald
(4)
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